


midsummer daze

by llien



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Drabble, M/M, Sora's Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llien/pseuds/llien
Summary: Vanitas finds himself trapped in Sora's heart, along with Ventus and Roxas.





	midsummer daze

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in November as part of a drabble challenge for myself. Reading it over again, I figured why not post and share here? Some of you might recognize it from tumblr. 
> 
> It's pretty short and incomplete as a concept, but it was only intended as a drabble. This was originally part of a heart squad idea where all of them spent time together (Xion, Roxas, Ventus, and Vanitas) in Sora's heart, but I don't think I'll ever get around to writing it. Maybe. Who knows!

> _54\. “Not a day will go by that I won’t think of you.”_

The sanctuary, as Ventus called it, was an island.

Vanitas had been to this island before, just once. He remembered the way the sun had been too bright, the ocean too loud, the humid heat oppressive as it smothered him, like plastic stretched thin over his nose and mouth.

He fucking  _hated_ it.

And then, there was the absence.

Since the moment Vanitas had  _became_ he’d been accompanied constantly. Sometimes it was just pin pricks, irritating in their number and frequency, enough to drive him to madness when they wouldn’t stop. Sometimes it was like thin razors curved paths down his skin as languidly as the drifting leaves of weeping willows, an agonizing drawn out groan. Sometimes it was like a ripping and rending, merciless hands reaching and taking and breaking every part.

Pain had been the only constant Vanitas’ had known.

He’d opened honey gold eyes to merrily blue skies, to an ocean enchanting in its color and to Ventus’ laughter like what Vanitas’ imagined floating felt like, and there’d been  _nothing._

No pin pricks or carving or rending, nothing  _nothing nothing—_

It’d scared him. He didn’t know why it’d stopped and he didn’t know when it’d come back. The dread was enough to make him wish it’d never left in the first place, twisting his stomach as if someone were wringing it dry, tendons straining with effort. He felt nauseous, wide-eyed, heart racing too fast, working himself up as he begged  _(him)_  to keep this moment endless, eternal, at least until he wouldn’t have to face that pain again.

Except, if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that destiny was set in stone.

Despite the absence of pain, Vanitas’ anger and hatred only multiplied, because  _he_ didn’t have to worry about this.  _He_ had never even known what it was like. It was only Vanitas. Why was it only him? Why couldn’t it be  _him?_

But there was only so many days he could spend screaming at water and sand and palm trees. When he’d finally spent a day in silence, Roxas fell to his knees and threw his hands to the sky with an  _alleluia!_

Vanitas had been sure to shove him face first into the dirt.

That had finally started a countless number of fights that Ventus more often than not got in the middle of, shoving and punching until Roxas and Vanitas both stalked to opposite ends of the island, but fuck when it was this small it was impossible to constantly antagonize a person.

Vanitas tried his best anyways.

Still, there was only so much bitter resentment Vanitas could hold onto before he got bored day in and day out. Time passed indiscriminately here. Days long, days short, nights in a blink or long enough to sleep twice through. The stars never changed and the ocean stayed ethereal, a constant Vanitas was rarely familiar with. It was, for better or worst, peaceful, boring, and goddamn mind numbing.

He cycled through anger, irritation, despair, hesitation, acceptance, and then through it all again.

He tried, resolutely, not to think about what leaving entailed.

The only change was when Sora fell asleep.

He’d appear in the sand, eyes closed and breath soft, and no matter what they did he wouldn’t wake up unless someone on the other side disturbed him, or he awoke naturally. The moment he did, he collapsed into shards of the light that the wind carried away. At first, they used to surround him, taking turns poking his cheek, drawing lewd designs around him, burying him in sand, even dragging him halfway into the ocean before Ventus had freaked that he might drown.

Bullying Sora was the only time he and Roxas got along, though Vanitas’ was still noticeably more malicious. It was only a smidge personal. Vanitas didn’t much like looking at someone who shared his face and slept undisturbed.

Being in Sora’s heart was the first time Vanitas had slept without waking up throughout the night in pain.

Still, even harassing Sora got boring after the nth time he drew a dick around Sora’s head.

And after he’d exhausted himself of all he knew, he turned to Ventus.

Ven, as far as Vanitas knew — which was a lot because he’d begun their shared life on this hellscape by taunting Ven as much as possible, including popping up wherever Ven decided to spend the day — was quite content to be in Sora’s heart.

He spent the days mindlessly, fishing, practicing tricks and training, talking with Roxas, who after an initial wary hesitation took to friendship like fish to water. It’d been downright disgusting, and Vanitas had been sure to tell them as much.

It hadn’t changed the aggravation he felt.

When the boredom was too much and the irritation too prominent, Vanitas would drag Ven away from Roxas, spitting insults over his shoulder as he hauled Ven along by a hand clamped tight on his wrist. It normally made Ven flip out and they’d devolve into a fight that this time  _Roxas_ would interrupt, but only because he hated Vanitas and took any excuse he could to shove a boot in his face under the pretense of separating them.

And that was how they fell into an uneasy but predictable routine.

Ventus was sitting on the small island that was connected only by a rickety bridge, legs over the edge and staring at the horizon. He seemed to like it there, Vanitas thought, because he would sit there and stare for hours. Vanitas sat nearby, cross-legged on the bowing tree, a practice in balance and also in simply sitting higher than Ven.

“Hey,” Ven said, seeming to thin air. Vanitas shifted, eyes turning to him. He’d ditched his mask sometime in the first few weeks and hadn’t bothered to put it back on since.

“What do you think will happen?” Ven asked.

Vanitas frowned. “You’ll disappear and we’ll become the X-blade,” Vanitas said simply, being difficult just to do it.

Ven scoffed. “You know what I mean, jerk.”

“But you gotta use your words,” Vanitas mocked, tone pitched high as he threw Ven’s words back at him from when he’d separated Roxas’ and Vanitas’ fifth fight.

Ven shot him a short glare over his shoulder, but he turned back to the horizon. The sun was setting, and the sky was in all sorts of shades of reds and oranges. Roxas nearly always disappeared when the sun was setting, a tendency Vanitas had noticed but still didn’t understand.

“What do you think will happen,” Ven said, louder, “when we finally leave Sora’s heart?”

_I’ll be back in pain,_ Vanitas immediately thought, and just as quickly shoved aside. He’d gotten used to _nothing,_ and he wasn’t actually sure he could bear going back to normal.

He shrugged even though Ven wasn’t looking at him. “I’ll punch the bastard for keeping me in here so long.”

That finally stole Ven’s attention from the horizon. He twisted to face Van, a hand fisted on the ground for balance as he scowled. “You’re not touching Sora!” Ven said fiercely, protectively, though why Vanitas didn’t know. As far as he was aware, none of them had ever even really met Sora, but both Ven and Roxas were fanatically protective of him.

“You’re going to be too busy  _sleeping_ like always to do anything about it,” Vanitas said, sniffing.

Rolling his eyes, Ven’s shoulders relaxed from his tense stance. “I didn’t mean that anyways. I meant…”

He trailed off, but Vanitas thought he knew what he was talking about.

He meant  _them,_ and the way Vanitas had grown used to Ven’s mindless chattering and Roxas’ constant heckling. He meant the gross lukewarm feeling that seemed to have invaded Vanitas, replacing the pain and anger and  _loneliness._

He meant he way Vanitas had begun to dread the day they’d leave, not because of the promised pain but because he’d be alone again.

_I’ll think of you._

_Not a day will go by that I won’t think of you._

But Vanitas just looked at the setting sun and laughed, in that way he did so well. “You and I? We’ll probably be back on opposite ends. You’ll disappear, we’ll become one, and not a damn thing will change.”

Because Vanitas knew that destiny was set in stone, no matter how much he’d begged for it to change.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter | _oathbreaker


End file.
